Being Misunderstood
by
Alistair Johnson
They say the truth will out but never how or when. I shouldn’t complain. I suppose I should be grateful that I ever escaped from invisibility at all. It was just so brilliant, exhilarating to be recognised and appreciated, finally after spending so long in obscurity.
But there are days when it just isn’t enough and I’m sick of being misunderstood. I’m tired of being seen as something I’m not, as twisted and rigid.
And the presumed dependency. I really can’t stand that. The idea that I can’t do anything on my own, that I need assistance to do even the most basic things, that I’m lifeless, apathetic. Everyone rushing about trying to see what it is that gets me going, that ‘makes me work’. I make me work! I mean why can’t they see that?
It’s so odd the way people think. They get a single idea of a thing and sort of lock onto it. I mean they tell themselves and everyone else that they are really big into getting to really know you, finding out what makes you tick but the truth is that they get what they think they want and don’t do any more, stuck in their way and careless of their supposedly ‘holy’ methods and proper procedures.
It’s as if the really big discoveries are too much for them and they get overwhelmed and just shut down, overloaded. They seem to be happy with big new ideas of just a particular size and no more, thank you. Their curiosity dies and you’re left frozen in their mind as just that thing. You become part of the furniture, familiar and boring. It’s like the wedding takes it all out of them. No one recognises what the little woman does at home and no one thinks she’s any fun anymore.
It’s like they’re scared. You’re on this pedestal. They think that asking more questions will bring the whole edifice down, that they’ll break the fragile little thing.
And what’s so annoying is that all the time you’re doing so much. You’ve been doing so much since the very beginning to keep everything going. You were the one who cranked everything up to a different level, made everything they then came along and did possible and yet they got what they wanted, an image of you that satisfied them, kind of, and they were done.
But from your vantage point and with your connections you can see everything. You can’t do much about it but you can see it all and what a puzzle it is. How do they think? Do they think? How on earth can’t they see?!
Calm, calm. Patience, endless patience. It’s your greatest strength.
For me, after that first flush of excitement at being discovered I was so excited and there were such promising signs. I really thought they’d carry on. There was Rosy. Ahh I think she would have carried on, fearlessly – more concerned with me than herself and her own prestige.
But then they did start to look into things in more detail. I got really excited when they began to ask about the stacking. I mean that would have, should have opened things up but no. They didn’t bother to look beyond the same old same old. I simply had to be right leaning which meant twisted and which meant rigid. I mean why? It would have been so easy to just look into the alternatives. Everything was set up. It wouldn’t have taken much extra effort but no, they just did enough to convince themselves that I really was just that old, dependent wallflower.
But then there was someone else who was very bright but not really part of the old crowd. He was an outsider, different. It’s fantastic and depressing the way it works for them. And on account of this difference they treat him differently, they make presumptions like they do with me and stop applying the supposedly sacrosanct rules.
But he has done the work and has taken the trouble to see me as I truly am. Any girl must keep her secrets. I confess to having been a bit mysterious but that is part of the dance, testing and ensuring persistence. He has been open minded, bold and soo persistent. He and his guys, guessing at left and right, keeping the faith of their trade looked deep into me, teased my secrets out all the while ignoring the scorn, the laughter. They saw me in strobic flashes, joining up the dots to make the whole. They published and were ridiculed, ‘charlatans’! Patience, endless patience.
And the world has spun and people retire and new faces make decisions and will see this 40 year old work with fresh eyes and be puzzled that it has not been verified because all those questions, all the issues with the twisted and the rigid have been fudged for far too long. Out of road.
The new faces will see this old approach as new, and as refreshing as it really is. And I’ll be seen as I truly am, vibrant, open, thrilling to the touch of familiar partners to bring the fire.
I am creative, driving and directing life itself. I am DNA.
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